For many OF Canada’s so-called solution-providers gathered recently in Halifax at the Breakaway Solution Provider event, the simple reality is their success hinges on how well they provide IT services to their smaller-to-medium size businesses. In fact, they often must become the IT department for

those companies.

SMBs are notoriously deficient when it comes to IT skills, and that has many vendors smelling a huge opportunity.

Among them: Tiny Ottawa-based Level Platform which is taking a rather bold step by offering SMBs a complete suite of system management tools for the previously unheard price of $75 per month per site.

Such product suites, in the enterprise market, can easily cost in the hundreds of thousands of dollars but Brian Rickert, director of sales at Level Platform simply thinks it should cost a lot less.

And if solution providers hop on their bandwagon, he adds, it could also radically change how SMBs use outsourcing.